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Science

Those Amazing Antigravity Machines? 488

Posted by simoniker from the up-up-and-improbably-away dept.
surfimp writes "Wired is running an interesting article about 'lifters', hovering UFO-looking vehicles that have no moving parts, no onboard power supply, and are capable of levitating simply through the application of high amounts of electrical current. Enthusiasts claim their vehicles are examples of a nascent antigravity technology, while more traditional scientists - including some funded by NASA - view them as nothing more than contraptions harnessing ionic winds."
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Those Amazing Antigravity Machines? More

Those Amazing Antigravity Machines?

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  • Not Antigravity (Score:5, Informative)

    by Lord Byron II ( 671689 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @08:53PM (#6404456)
    After reading the whole long thing do you finally find out that its not antigravity at all, but an ion engine. It requires an atmosphere to work and is fully directional. Cool stuff, but not antigravity.

    • Re:Not Antigravity (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The difference is moot as the fundamental princible is the same. It's just a matter of how you implement it.

      In fact, had they have done the engine in java, you would have anti-gravity--but since they chose the implementation that they did, you have an ion engine.
    • LOL, two of those suckers and a cockpit, and you have a TIE Fighter... *g*

      (TIE = Twin Ion Engine)

      Damn, I watch too much Star Wars.
      • And we also know how those sparky engines on the Logos and the Neb, and the hovercars and nuclear/dark storm bombers in the second renaisannce work.

        Pretty neat. All you need is an abundant source of energy.

        • several small problems (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @10:48PM (#6405001) Journal
          If you look at it carefully, you will notice that
          • these things are basically aluminum foil and balsa wood. and some wires with some pretty high voltage.
          • they are tethered down with fishing line so that the don't go shattering themselves, crashinfg high voltage lines into the operators. Otherwise there would be no control whatsoever.
          • The fishing line is usually not visible
          • the actual power supplies are kept out of sight, and are good old fashioned heavy as S*** high voltage generators with a plug to the wall. think a ten or twenty pound unit punching HV into a 2 or 3 oz "lifter"
          Until they can overcome this need to have an external power unit that outweighs the "lifter" by a factor of at least a couple of hundred to one, this will not be a practical technology. Never mind the need for invisible tether strings for navigational control.

          Lets face it, you throw enough voltage into something, and you can make almost anything flip.

          • Re:several small problems (Score:5, Interesting)

            by fenix down ( 206580 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @06:18AM (#6406227)
            The lack of control thing is really just because nobody bothers to try. It's like building a helicopter rotor and engine and just turning it on. It'll flip all the fuck over unless you tie it down or something. I'm guessing if you put little stablizer lifters on the sides of your big lifter you get lighting going in between them or other bad things, but if you did something like that, I can't see this being any more unstable than any other kind of propulsion.

            BTW, if the Nebechunezzar runs on lifters, why does it need an EMP? Anything more conductive than a petrified Carrie-Anne Moss ought to be attracting ridiculous arcs by the time it gets within tense music distance, no?

    • Re:Not Antigravity (Score:5, Interesting)

      by grumpygrodyguy ( 603716 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:16PM (#6404593)
      Levitation lives! [sci.kun.nl]

      And yes, this one does work in a vacuum.

      • Re:Not Antigravity (Score:5, Insightful)

        by stuffman64 ( 208233 ) <stuffman@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Thursday July 10, 2003 @04:14AM (#6406001)
        The article mentioned the website American Antigravity [americanantigravity.com] as a source of information about this "electrogravitics" phenomenon. I clicked on the section about theHutchison Effect [americanantigravity.com]. It is said to be "...a very complex scalar-wave interaction between electromagnetic fields and matter." To me, it just proves that people without a solid background in science will believe almost anything they see.

        Take, for example, the pictures in the document. This picture [americanantigravity.com] shows what looks like a butter knife embedded in some sort of metal. The metal looks pretty much like tin, lead, zinc, or some other metal with a low melting point. Maybe his scalar waves did this, or some idiot dropped a butter knife in a solder pot, let it cool, and cut it in half to reveal the knife. Who knows.

        The best part comes from the videos at the bottom of the screen. Here, you see this little toy saucer take off and "magically" fly around the room. Video 3 shows the saucer resting on a wooden plank, with the camera close by aiming right at the little magic toy. Soon enough, it takes off and flutters about. Funny how all this energy in such a little space has no ill effects on the camera and its metal bits just inches away. The next 3 videos look remarkably alike, this time showing the craft at a distance. Notice how it lifts and flys, and something on the right hand side of the screen jingles around with similar movements. Again, there are metalic objects within very close distances (like the chains hanging nearby), but the "scalar waves of magic" (my quote) do not affect it. I bet that thing on the right is a fishing rod or a hollow tube with string in it used to manipulate the craft for the camera.

        Alas, we will never know the truth, because unfortunatly, "...Hutchison's experiments have been exceeding difficult to replicate due to the extraordinarily complex arrangement of waveforms that is seemlingly required to generate the Hutchison effect."

        Folks, take most of this stuff with a grain of salt. Sure, flyers fly (I've built one using a busted monitor as a power supply - it work, but according to my calculations, takes about 8000 Joules of energy for a 30 second flight, about the same energy as a family sedan going 7mph, which is quite inefficient), but they just work on well-known principals. Next time you see an "Ionic Breeze" air purifyer, put your hand next to it - you will feel the ion-induced wind blow against your hand. Same thing going on with the lifters, just with a bit more power and a different shape.

    • Re:Not Antigravity (Score:4, Interesting)

      by elmegil ( 12001 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:30PM (#6404661) Homepage Journal
      I'm curious where the lift comes from then in the cases where they've blocked the upper wires with straws, or placed a piece of cardboard between one of the upper wires and the lower section. I'm not saying this is antigravity, but it would seem strange that it could be ion wind with no wind.
      • Electromagnetic fields can penetrate solid objects. You might not get a breeze through the mesh, but the air molecules on the other side of the barrier will repulse just as nicely as if the barrier wasn't there.

    • Re:Not Antigravity (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Mostly Harmless ( 48610 ) <mike_pete@nospAM.yahoo.com> on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @10:04PM (#6404780) Homepage
      While these devices are only ion engines, I still think that it may be an interesting step towards discovering a true anti-gravity device. But I can't believe that electromagnatism and gravity can be unified at only a few kV of electricity. If that were the case, anti-gravity would have been discovered years ago. Besides, all voltage is is the difference in the number of electrons between two points. Perhaps at high enough voltages the gravitational attraction of the electrons at one point would cause some kind of anti-gravity effect at the opposite point, but I would assume that it would need to be a HUGE potential difference coupled with an extremely small device. Perhaps it isn't voltage at all that we need to look at to unify electromagnetism and gravity. If, that is, they can be unified at all.

      • Re:Not Antigravity (Score:4, Insightful)

        by pauljlucas ( 529435 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @04:03AM (#6405987) Homepage Journal
        ... it may be an interesting step towards discovering a true anti-gravity device ...
        If you view gravity as nothing more than the curvature of space-time (as opposed to a "force") caused by the presence of mass, then there's no way to obtain an "inverse curvature" at a given point in space. Hence, there can be no anti-gravity.

      • Re:Not Antigravity (Score:3, Informative)

        by t0ast3r_b0y ( 688378 )

        Besides, all voltage is is the difference in the number of electrons between two points.

        IANALBIAAEE (I Am Not A Lawyer, But I Am An Electrical Engineer).

        That isn't true; voltage and electron density are unrelated.

        It's actually pretty easy to prove to yourself. Consider the following facts (anal physics people, cut me some slack so I can expedite things):

        1. The most telling fact: the terminals of a 12V car battery are electrostatically neutral. Try dropping some lint over one to verify this.
        2. Take a v

    • I built one a while back. (Score:5, Informative)

      by nomel ( 244635 ) <`turd' `at' `inorbit.com'> on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @10:05PM (#6404787) Homepage Journal
      I made one of these things a while ago.

      website here [leaked.info]

      My website has picture too! Even of my high tech power supply apparatus! And my super HV safety encolsure!

      Even got some video (which unfortunatly isn't on my website yet, can't find the tape) of it's final crash. You can definitely feel the ionic wind underneath the thing. It was a lot of fun making it though. Only burned a couple hole in the carpet (the cement under the carpet is plenty conductive), a floormat (I repeat, the cement is conductive), and some paper (got in the way of the cement), and lots of grass from when I used it outside (ground is conductive too, duh). At least my lifter went out in a flaming ball of glory, when it proceded to fly into a metallic doorframe, causing huge arcs and fire (which happens to be what I got on video:) after I cut one of the teathers (Muahhaha!).

      Some think it is forces cause by the electrical field lines going from plates that are perpendicular. This is interesting, but i don't think this is how it works. If you look at the design, there is no stable capacitor. Since you do not ground the foil, you are not making a plate that will stay at a substantial potential that is less than the wire, because of ionized air and sparks that tend to sometime fly to it. And, the capacitance would be sooo low, that 25kv most likely wouldn't be enough to lift it even if those forces did exist. Also, looking at the construction, I can't see and perpendicular plates.

      I also saw an experiment, cant find it though, of someone who put one in a bag that was wrapped around it. It didn't fly...which proves it. And, someone told me that if you monitor the current (didn't have or make a HV current meter at the time) there is a HUGD power draw that would be plenty to lift the lifter.

    • Power effeciency? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MikeFM ( 12491 )
      Given the dangerous levels of electricity the use seems limited. Also I wonder how well these could be kept over the generators? Wouldn't they fly right off their power source? How effecient is it to 'beam' power to fly a load compared to just putting the power source in the flyer itself and flying in a traditional way? Sounds cool but seems it'll need a lot of work to be useful.
    • Evgenij Barsoukov has a page with a pretty convincing theory of lifters here [tripod.com]. His equasions predict the thrust and efficiency of models built by many experimenters with fairly good accuracy.
      • Pfft, Barsoukov's stuff is sophmotic. Note, for instance, that he doesn't consider entrainment of the surrounding medium as a working mass in his "what it's not" section.

        ion wind + air pulled along with it = lots of airflow

        Don't believe me? Check out back issues of PopMech from the late 1960's, they build a fan with no moving parts out of lifter parts.

    • The big problem with real anti-gravity... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      is that it stops you being stuck to the Earth's surface. Since the Earth is: a) rotating (at 1038mph at the equator) b) orbiting the sun (at 67,000mph) c) in a solar system orbiting the galaxy (at 558,000mph) that is itself in a galaxy drifing in our local group (at 669,600mph) anyone who stops being affected by gravity, even for a split second, would end up pretty far away. I believe it's called 'absolute rest'.

  • Amazing (Score:5, Funny)

    by drewbradford ( 458480 ) <drew@drewbradford.com> on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @08:54PM (#6404464) Homepage
    Flying without moving parts! Why couldn't someone come up with this sooner?

    blimps... hot air balloons...

    • Re:Amazing (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You think blimps don't have propellors? Balloons don't have giant torches which have to be opened to go up and flaps on the top to go down?
      With these things, it would be concievable to do everything with a few radio dials. One for lift, one for the left thruster, one for the right thruster, and one for reverse.

  • heh (Score:5, Funny)

    by miseryinmotion ( 615385 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @08:54PM (#6404465) Homepage
    I can see the media's interpretation already:

    So, to lose weight, apply massive amounts of electrical current

  • Further reading (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sir_Dill ( 218371 ) <slashdot AT zachula DOT com> on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @08:55PM (#6404468) Homepage
    check out americanantigravity.com [americanantigravity.com]

    This is a site run by this guy I used to work with...pretty interesting stuff.

    I think it messed with his head a little though.

    • Re:Further reading (Score:5, Funny)

      by nomel ( 244635 ) <`turd' `at' `inorbit.com'> on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @10:14PM (#6404825) Homepage Journal
      The flame is drawn towards the 30-gauge collector wire when power is applied partially through an aerodynamic push from ions travelling from the emitter to the collector, but also because the flame is a mixture of combustion-gasses and gas-plasma that picks up and carries charges in the air-gap to the collector.


      One time, with a small 4kv power supply (hurt, but not too much), I tried something like this. I put a wire near the flame, near the base, and charged myself with the other. I then put my finger next to the flame as to give the illusion that I was controlling the flame. Well, it worked too good, and the flame shot at my finger, bending directly onto it. I not only got burnt almost instantly, but got shocked a little as well! Heheh. Stupid me.

  • Obligatory boobie joke (Score:5, Funny)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @08:55PM (#6404471) Homepage
    Those Amazing Antigravity Machines

    Joke completed.

  • More traditional scientists? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Muerte23 ( 178626 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @08:55PM (#6404472) Journal
    You mean the ones that deal with facts, and actual forces of nature?

    If you read to the end of the wired article, he talks about a controlled nasa experiment that showed that the effect doesn't work in vacuum.

    Also, it's not high amounts of electrical current as stated in the headline, it's high voltage. A high voltage (~20kV) wire on top ionizes air molecules which are accelerated downward toward an oppositely charged wire. Action, reaction, upward force.

    No anti gravity here. But maybe enough voltage to kill yourself. Maybe soon we will get a darwin award for an anti gravity attempt that never actually leaves the ground...

    Muerte

    • Re:More traditional scientists? (Score:5, Informative)

      by probbka ( 308168 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:00PM (#6404502) Journal
      It's the current (amps) that kill, not volts...

      At least that's what my freshman physics teacher always said.
      • Since you brought up volts, amps and dying I thought this [drmegavolt.com] link would be appropriate.

      • Re:More traditional scientists? (Score:4, Informative)

        by Neurotensor ( 569035 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @10:30PM (#6404899)
        It's the current (amps) that kill, not volts...

        At 20kV it doesn't take much capacitance to give you a boot - a brief current pulse as you discharge the capacitance. And if the power supply is still switched on, then your flesh tends to burn where the hot spark touches you. Volts seldom occur without Amps so don't go around thinking you're not going to die when you touch a 20kV source ;) If you're lucky you'll just be really sore afterwards. Ever touched the EHT lead of a switched-off TV?

        At least that's what my freshman physics teacher always said.

        Well then by all means touch the TV lead with a fast ammeter (CRO and resistor) and you will find out he was right, it's the Amps that will kill you ;) Or take my word for it and don't touch 20kV.

    • amps kill, volts are fun (Score:5, Informative)

      by GunFodder ( 208805 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:04PM (#6404532)
      My physics teacher in high school had a high voltage generator called "sparky". He could crank out 100,000 volts with that thing. Then he passed electrodes around and allowed us to experience 100,000 volts firsthand :) The reason this didn't kill anyone is that volts are not necessarily dangerous; amps do. The amount of current flowing through your body determines whether electricity is harmful.

      Case in point: in the US power mains run at 120 volts. Yet this is enough to kill you. The reason is that there are tens of amps available at the wall.

      • Re:amps kill, volts are fun (Score:5, Informative)

        by dnoyeb ( 547705 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:21PM (#6404622) Homepage Journal
        10 volts is enough to kill you if applied directly to your heart. its all about resistance. your hands and feet provide a longer path and thus more resistance. more resistance means more volts are needed to get the same current. if you put on rubber gloves, then a LOT more volts will be needed since thats MUCH higher resistance. But of course lightning laughs at your puny rubbers.

      • Re:amps kill, volts are fun (Score:5, Informative)

        by tzanger ( 1575 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:35PM (#6404680) Homepage

        Actually it's more about AC vs DC than it is about voltage potential. I very seriously doubt any human would survive a hundred thousand volts DC at practically any current. AC gives you this wonderful thing called skin effect which means that the vast majority of the voltage is flowing through the dead skin covering your body.

        It's true that "Volts Jolt, but mils (Amps) kill," but there's more to it than that.

    • Volts jolt, but mills kill.

      You can pump hundreds of thousands of volts through the human body and it won't actually kill you as long as the current is low enough. However, it only take a small amount of current to kill yourself. I forget the actual numbers, though.
      • I don't recall the exact number either (I know it's in a school book around here), but I do recall my teacher asking us once :
        "Do you know how we know (N)mA kills ?"

        Conjectures of theoretical resistance in a human body through the various organs etc. were supplied, but all dismissed for the supposed true answer :
        "The best way to find out is by experimentation. Mr. Mengele did just that. And now we know."

        That was followed by the rest of the hour discussing the ethics of using this data knowing that it was
    • It's got all the thrust of an ion engine (i.e., almost none), but it only works in the atmosphere, where wind current is going to create a dynamic pressure which swamps out its thrust.

      Very cool toy, but nothing more.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Just beacuse they dont work in a vaccum doesnt mean it should be dismissed...

      How many 'flying things' work in air.. pretty much everything..

      The concept has promise for earthbound flight.

      The voltage can be safely contained as well.. Not all devices using the techniques are 'open' like a lifter, some are sealed.

      • But if it requires an atmosphere, then it's not "antigravity"... and that's what it's claimed to be. People like to toss around the term "antigravity" because it seems to discredit established research.

        Kinda like "alternative medicine" - First they say your regular doctor doesn't know as much as they do and conventional medicine is a failure. Then they claim their products are 'clinically tested' and 'scientifically proven' to work.

        Besides, there are other problems with this device. The lift power they ge

  • NASA Patent (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @08:56PM (#6404476)
    Last summer, NASA was granted a patent on lifter technology

    Does this mean all US citizens can now use it? Since NASA develops its things with public money I seem to recall that they become available to everyone.

    • Really? Cool! I've got dibs on the next shuttle ride.

    • Re:NASA Patent (Score:4, Informative)

      by Bagheera ( 71311 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:59PM (#6404760) Homepage Journal
      The ionic thust that "Lifters" use to fly is little different from the ion Xenon Ion propulsion system NASA flew on the Deep Space 1 spacecraft. Details are very different, but the concept is the same.

      1:Create Ions
      2:Accelarate them with across a voltage differential
      3:Get Thrust

      And the obligatory . . .

      4: profit!

  • old concept (Score:4, Insightful)

    by stonebeat.org ( 562495 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @08:56PM (#6404480) Homepage
    nothing new. this is not anti-gravity. the concept of propelling by ionic wind has been around for a while.

    • Re:old concept (Score:3, Insightful)

      by prockcore ( 543967 )
      the concept of propelling by ionic wind has been around for a while.

      Does that somehow make it less cool? Does every american have one in his garage?
    • Seems to me no matter what you call it, its still floating. Why shouldn't I be interested in this technology? Is it somehow impracticle? Why cant planes use it?

      I'd love to change my Truck from 2500Lbs to ~1000Lbs. That would save me a TON of gas ;)
      • Okay, let's work this out. He uses a 50kV at 4 milli-amp power supply [amazing1.com]. That's 200 W power supply. With that he creates approximately a pound of upward thrust.

        You want to create 1500 lbs upward thrust. You'll need 300 kilowatts of power. Let's say you want to run it for one hour. You've used 300 kilowatt-hours (1.08 gigajoules) of energy.

        According to here [onlineconversion.com], you've actually used 8.19 gallons of automotive gasoline to power your device.

        On the other hand, if your truck now weighs only 1000 lbs... you might be
      • WHat makes your big truck hve crappy gas milage is it's shape and it's motion innerti (mass).

        It will not drop the mass of your truck.

        All the weight does is add some rolling friction.

  • Some guy who did an experiment with one (Score:5, Informative)

    by pv2b ( 231846 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @08:56PM (#6404481)
    A guide to building your own "lifter", sort of [sciences.free.fr]

    Perhaps you should build your own? Antigravity?Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. A cool toy? You bet.
  • Maybe we'll be in track to make hoverboards after all. Here I was all disappointed because I was promised flying cars by the year 2000.

    Now, can someone help Dr. Brown with that Flux Capacitor project already? Thanks.

  • Cold Fusion (Score:5, Funny)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @08:58PM (#6404492)
    "This is bigger than cold fusion!" one businessman told me jokingly.

    Everything is bigger than cold fusion.

  • Anti-gravity devices (Score:5, Funny)

    by pv2b ( 231846 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @08:59PM (#6404497)
    The concept of "defying gravity" by generating an upward force larger than the force of gravity pulling the object down is indeed very exciting.

    May I interest you in a Boeing [boeing.com] 747?

  • C'mon (Score:5, Funny)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:00PM (#6404501) Homepage
    a grassroots movement of antigravity fans

    Damn, man, just say geeks.

  • The *short* story (Score:5, Funny)

    by 3ryon ( 415000 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:01PM (#6404509)
    We can levitate almost a pound using an ion wind created by 120,000 volts. Strikes me that you could send a pound half-way around the earth using 120,000 volts and a rail gun.

    Anyone else think Wired authors get paid by the word, with no maximum?

    Sorry for the lame reply, I was trying to think of something witty just so I'd get modded up and the right person would read my sig. :)

  • tricky (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lingqi ( 577227 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:01PM (#6404512) Journal
    The thing with testing lifters and their operation is this problem, if i understand right:

    the easiest way to verify if the lifter lifts via ionic wind is by using the lifter in a vaccum, but while the lifters work ok in normal atmospheric pressures, when you begin to decrease the pressure of where the lifter operate (putting the contraption in a pumped area, say) would eventually cause too much corona discharge to happen and do a lot of bad things (lower dielectric constant for vaccum compared to air?).

    so, in any case - ion wind or not, this technology is still not quite suitable for space just yet. (i mean, besides the fact that you need a relatively heavy powersupply for this to get going)

    • Re:tricky (Score:2, Informative)

      by A55M0NKEY ( 554964 )
      Lifters are a glorified ionic breeze. No doubt about it. The lifter they tested in a vacuum didn't budge.

      Having said that, I thought it was interesting how they mentioned that the top wire of a lifter vibrated like a guitar string, arcing when it approached the tin foil part. With that vibration and arcing in sync with the vibration couldn't a lifter be considered a capacitor? If it is then would the mass of the vibrating top wire fluxuate because of the Woodward effect, possibly causing a net upward

  • anyone worked out the amount of power/lb? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by shoestring ( 184061 ) * on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:03PM (#6404530)
    Anyone look at the power/pound?
    Let's see.. 27000 V, 20 microamp, for 3 millipound.. think that works out to something like .54 Watt. .54 W/ .003 lb = 180 W/lb..
    Anyone know how this compares to say
    "normal" engines?
    Seems to be a really good battery, unless you have a tether (or beamed power).
  • Ok, remember that movie, "Ocean's Eleven?"

    I think I would probably cover my netherregions with something like this also.

  • Yeah.. I am SO sick of these pesky engineers always *claiming* to have developed power-independent hovercraft-like levitating vehicles with no moving parts, when all they're doing is harnessing the power of ionic winds! Sheesh!

    Hats off to NASA for stopping this ridiculous claim and setting the truth straight!

    • Re:Outrage!... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hpa ( 7948 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:10PM (#6404558) Homepage
      You know... the thing that's really annoying is that the article, after noting the bogosity of the "new physics" claims, pretty much implies that "it can't work, but it does."

      There is no new physics here, but perhaps new technology. All propulsion technology is really rehashes of the same old laws of physics, but that doesn't mean we have even begun to scrape the surface of what can be done with it. Ion-wind "lifters" (working in atmosphere) could very well become useful, especially in conjunction with ion rockets (which work in space.)

  • Why these, why now? (Score:5, Informative)

    by jfabermit ( 688258 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:10PM (#6404557)
    A good article, but there is a very good reason why most physicists tend to be extremely skeptical about claims like this. The voltages used by lifters may be large, but don't push the limits of modern technology in any way, shape or form. If strange anti-gravity phenomena happened for 10's of kV, we'd have seen the phenomena in a number of different places. Physical laws, as best we can tell, are universal, and they have many, MANY situations where they apply. It is extremely unlikely that these contraptions encounter high voltage antigrav phenomena, and no other high voltage machine we know of does. BTW, I know Rai Weiss, and he is certainly kinetic, but hyperkinetic might be a bit of a stretch. Definitely a world-class physicist, too, one whose calculations you should generally take seriously.

  • airplanes and other uses (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 73939133 ( 676561 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:15PM (#6404584)
    while more traditional scientists - including some funded by NASA - view them as nothing more than contraptions harnessing ionic winds.

    Yes, and airplanes are nothing more than contraptions harnessing aerodynamic lift, and the people who designed them originally also didn't fully understand the physics involved. If "ionic wind engines" can be made practical and acceptably efficient, they might give rise to a new class of airborn vehicles.

    And perhaps there are other uses as well. For example, electric fields and magnetic currents might be useful for shaping and redirecting the hot air that occurs during reentry from space. Or, the same technology might find uses not for pushing around large amounts of air for propulsion, but instead for changing the properties of the thin layer of air right above the surface of a traditional plane or vehicle--this could perhaps be used to reduce turbulences and improve performance.

  • Irresponsible Post (Score:5, Funny)

    by nametaken ( 610866 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:16PM (#6404589)

    Why would you post this? You know how many /.'ers are going to electrocute themselves in the next couple days?? (likely, myself included)

  • Complete bogus (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fpp ( 614761 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:16PM (#6404591)
    James Randi, the famous skeptic, has this to say about this subject (http://www.randi.org/jr/060702.html):

    "Go take a look at http://www.americanantigravity.com/index.html and see very interesting videos of what the supporters seem to believe is a breakthrough in science. If this device is "antigravity," then a pogo stick and a crow are both antigravity items, as well.

    I saw a similar demo at the University of Toronto back in 1946. That demo used a flat circular coil of wire; I believe this is the same thing, but a triangular form leads one away from the "induction" conclusion. It's a matter of high-voltage electrical fields generated by something that you don't see in the videos; there's always a source of high voltage present, a CRT (computer monitor or TV receiver) or a HV power supply, just out of camera view. What's also not obvious here is that the triangular frame -- which weighs only a few grams -- is tethered down by very fine invisible threads, a fact which when known, makes the apparent "maneuvering" appearance less mysterious by far."

    • Re:Complete bogus (Score:3, Interesting)

      by August_zero ( 654282 )
      Sometimes I like Randi, while there are a lot of whackos out there willing to beleive anything without being able to produce a grain of proof its nice to see that there is someone just as whacko coming at the subject from the opposite direction.

      And then other times, he proves himself to be just as blind and arrogant as the people he seeks to debunk when he makes snap statements and dismisses without properly investigating first. While he is right in the long view, his reasoning as to why its wrong, is fl

  • These things are so cool! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by be-fan ( 61476 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:22PM (#6404623)
    When my friend first showed me the site, I thought it was a hoax. He bitched about it enough that we decided to build some at school. We opened up some monitors to use as 25,000 volt power supplies, and wired one up using very thin wire and balsa wood. The damn thing flew alright. Power-to-weight ratio sucked, though. The thing was hooked up to a monitor (don't know much it was actually dissipating) but could only lift about its body weight (2 or 3 grams for our model). The nifty thing about it is that while we were working on it, we left it in the robotics lab labeled "Anti-gravity machine, do not touch!"

    PS> If you try this at home, remember, high voltages arc very easily! One of the times we tried it, there was a class in the lab at the time. One guy was so fascinated that the electric charge in the wires made the hair on his arm stand on end that he got a little too close :)

  • harnessing ionic winds (Score:5, Funny)

    by djupedal ( 584558 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:23PM (#6404628)
    ...or, as it is known in most border towns in Texas...."fffrrrriiipppp!!! Damn, Roy...that was SOME good chili!!
  • Why doesn't someone simply put one of these puppies in a thin plastic bag (like the ones that your Dry Cleaned Garments come home in)?

    You only need to test it for a few seconds, so heat shouldn't be a real issue. Inflate the thing if you need to keep the edges away from the HV.

    Why hasn't anyone tried it?!?!?!

    --Mike--

  • I've even heard slashdot mentioned in wired. Are they just united in technolibertarianism or something? Or like owned by the same company? Does a single month go by without a wired magazine story ending up on /.?

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:30PM (#6404659)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • This was in Popular Science years ago (Score:5, Informative)

    by Pvt_Waldo ( 459439 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:30PM (#6404662)
    I remember reading about this technology in Popular Science oh - back in the late 60's or 70's? It was clearly pitched as Ionic at the time - and the problem at the time seemed to have been how to carry the power supply around.

  • Breakthrough is near! (Score:4, Funny)

    by slobber ( 685169 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:40PM (#6404695)
    Have you seen those awesome hovercrafts in Matrix? Recall all the lightning around them? These must be it: "Nebukadnezar - powered by ionic wind!"

  • Not Antigravity (Score:2, Redundant)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 )
    If you take some time to read, its not antigravity, its got a more rational theories of how they work, dealing mainly with ion flow.

    Its also an old story.. been posted several times in the past.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • I hate to /. this guy's site but... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mikeophile ( 647318 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @10:08PM (#6404796)
    If you want to build a really neat motor using exactly the same principles as these "anti-gravity" machines, check out this link.

    http://www.amasci.com/emotor/emot1.html [amasci.com]

    You can use a TV screen as your high voltage source.

    I had a variation of this spinning on my office PC a few years back.

    Nothing says geek quite like a monitor powered ion motor on your desk.

  • Any different? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by inertia187 ( 156602 ) * on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @10:16PM (#6404831) Homepage Journal
    Is this any different from what these guys [sci.kun.nl] did? Actually, this link seemed fake to me when I first saw it on slashdot. They claim to use DIAMAGNETIC LEVITATION, not anti-gravity. I'm still waiting for the home model.

  • NASA: get out of the Dark Ages! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @06:27AM (#6406241) Homepage

    'Last fall, they tested the contraption in regular air - shooting it with 27,000 volts at 20 microamps. Bingo: It generated 3 millipounds of force [...] "We're talking maybe even a pound of thrust out of one of these little devices the size of my thumb. We've got some promise here!"'

    Millipounds? Pounds? What's that in bushels per hectare?

    My god, no wonder they keep smashing things into Mars if their cutting edge research is done in pounds and by "rule of thumb".

  • hmmm... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bpowell423 ( 208542 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @08:30AM (#6406470)
    Somewhere I read once about the military developing transports that work like this. Probably read it on slashdot. Anyway... imagine a nuclear power plant in the heart of this thing generating the power for the ion lifter... Somebody in this discussion already figured the power at 180 W/lb. Let's say you want a craft that can carry 100 tons (200,000 lbs). That'd take 36MW. The nuclear reactors around here generate over 1000MW. Wonder how much they'd weigh scaled down to 36MW. Hmmm... that'd be one heck of a ship. Imagine how long (years) it could hover in the air without being refueled... until the reactor rods were spent...

    Okay, folks... don't flame me... just thinking out loud...

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